+The Linux kernel patches for Lustre. See the Lustre file system Operations
+Manual 2.x from http://lustre.opensfs.org/documentation/ for information on how
+to patch your kernel.
-Lustre requires changes to the core kernel before it can be compiled against
-hte core kernel source tree. We use Andrew Morton's 'patch-scripts' utilties
-to keep the complexity of managing changes across multiple kernel targets down.
-They handle the ordering metadata, application, refreshing, and removal of
-patches for us. Please read scripts/docco.txt for a more thorough explanation
-of what 'patch-scripts' do.
-
-We create a thin wrapper around patchscripts with our ./prepare_tree.sh. It
-exports two environment variables. PATCHSCRIPTS is a relative path from the
-kernel source tree to the checked-out patchscripts repository. It is requires
-for patchscripts to operate on data outside the kernel source tree. It also
-puts the absolute path to the scripts/ directory at the front of PATH.
-Finally, it creates a 'series' link from the kernel tree back to the proper
-series file for that kernel tree. More on that below.
-
-prepare_tree.sh and the patch-scripts commands are the only interface we should
-use on a daily basis. We should never have to manage the patches by hand.
-This will save us heart-ache once we're good with the tools. I promise.
-
-Data to be aware of:
-
-patches/
- contains all the patch files themselves. We should have a patch per
- functional change.
-
-series/
- the text files that patch-utils use to define the ordering of patches
- that are applied to a tree. We have a series file for each kernel
- tree variant that requires wildly different patches. (architecture
- differences, stock vs. redhat, etc)
-
-pc/
- control files for patch-utils. These are per tree and should never
- be in cvs.
-
-txt/
- text descriptions of the patches. Nice, but not functionally required.
-
-First, before anything happens, you need to prep a tree for use with
-patch-utils. This means putting a series link in the file and setting the
-environment variable:
-
- $ eval `./prepare_tree.sh -t /tmp/kernels/linux-2.4.18 -r stock-2.4`
-
-prepare-tree.sh is careful to output variable assignments to stdout and
-everything else to stderr so the eval won't go awry. It also is clever about
-resolving the series name, so tab-completed relative paths to the series files
-can be used with -r. (it assumes that series/ is under where prepare_tree.sh
-was executed from). The series link that is created from the tree back into
-the cvs repository is created by force. Don't re-run the command with a
-different role. (this should probably be fixed)
-
-With this in place, the shell that did the eval is ready to wield patch-utils.
-
-] To apply all the patches to a given tree:
-
- $ eval `./prepare_tree.sh -t /tmp/kernels/linux-2.4.18 -r stock-2.4`
- $ cd /tmp/kernels/linux-2.4.18
- $ pushpatch 100000
- ( the huge number just serves to iterate through the patches )
-
-] To refresh the patches against a newer kernel that the series applies to.
-
-Say the series file 'rh-8.0-dev' corresponds to a CFS policy of tracking the
-most recent red hat 8.0 distro kernel. It used to be 2.4.18-14, say, and RH
-has now released RH 2.4.18-17.8.0 and CFS has decided to move to it. We
-want to update the patches in cvs HEAD to be against 2.4.18-17.8.0
-
- $ eval `./prepare_tree.sh -t /tmp/linux-2.4.18-17.8.0 -r rh-8.0-dev`
- $ cd /tmp/linux-2.4.18-17.8.0
- $ for a in $NUM_PATCHES_HAVE ; do
- pushpatch;
- refpatch;
- done
-
-] To add a new series
-
-Simply add a new empty file to the series/ directory, choosing a descriptive
-name for the series.
-
-] To add a patch into a series
-
-Ideally a patch can be added to the end of the series. This is most easily
-done with patch-utils import_patch. After the patch is imported it still needs
-to be applied and refreshed with 'pushpatch' and 'refpatch'. ___remember to
-cvs add the patch with -ko___ so that tags in the context of the diff aren't
-change by CVS, rendering the patch unusable.
-
-It is considered valuable to have a common HEAD which can be checked out to
-patch a kernel and build lustre across lots of targets. This creates some
-friction in the desire to keep a single canonical set of patches in CVS. We
-solve this with the patch-utils scripts by having well-named patches that are
-bound to the different series. Say alpha and ia64 kernel trees both need a
-common lustre patch. Ideally they'd both have our-funcionality.patch in their
-series, but perhaps the code path we want to alter is different in the trees
-and not in the architecture-dependant part of the kernel. For this we'd want
-our-functionality-ia64.patch in the ia64 series file, and
-our-functionality-alpha.patch in the alpha. This split becomes irritating to
-manage as shared changes want to be pushed to all the patches. This will be a
-pain as long as the kernel's we're receiving don't share revision control
-somehow. At least the patch utils make it relatively painless to 'pushpatch'
-the source patch, clean up rejects, test, and 'refpatch' to generate the new
-patch for that series.